What the hell is going on with the HISD board? (Bellaire: magnet school, colleges)

[WRM20]

Originally Posted by hbcu

Treat education like real estate

Mix the good ones with the bad ones which in tune will force the some of the bad ones to shape up or ship out.

When you take out the folks that can provide a balance what’s left?

Then the ones that leave become average themselves elsewhere and their potential is unfulfilled.

But let’s add athletics to the equation also as that’s why some folks are leaving which makes no sense.

Nope, the bad students remain bad, and bring down the achievement of the good students through behavior, disruption, or just plain taking a lot more time from the teacher. You don't want the bad ones to ship out, since that hurts the dropout metrics.

[Vicman]

1,419 (42% of) Lamar students were zoned, and the remainder were transfers.

The Lamar zone had an estimated 3,484 high school students; 2,171 attended HISD high schools, 75 were in charters or other school districts, and about 1,238 went private.

https://www.houstonisd.org/cms/lib2/...Lamar%20HS.pdf

Originally Posted by hbcu

Reading that demographic report is sickening

Nearly 3,000 students from Yates, Worthing, Sterling, Madison and Westbury are at Lamar, Bellaire or Westside.

There’s your problem right there. Lamar accepts 2,000 out of zone students cause in zone kids don’t go there

HISD is its own problem as some schools aren’t set up to be successful cause it allows zoned students to leave out which skews test scores in the grand scheme. There can only be one valedictorian.

[daisee1203]

Originally Posted by usc619

The intern Super was doing a good job with the mess she was left with. This doesn't pass the smell test.

So grateful my kids do not attend this school district. I laugh at anyone who thinks buying in the hot "hipster" neighborhoods is smart and then send their kids to the HISD public schools. Every time I see something on the news I thank the heavens we bought elsewhere. And yes, the drives are worth it to me if it means our school district isn't in turmoil every time we turn around.

[Vicman]

And yet West U elementary is bursting at the seams. Seems like several schools can operate despite the latest board chaos.

Originally Posted by daisee1203

So grateful my kids do not attend this school district. I laugh at anyone who thinks buying in the hot "hipster" neighborhoods is smart and then send their kids to the HISD public schools. Every time I see something on the news I thank the heavens we bought elsewhere. And yes, the drives are worth it to me if it means our school district isn't in turmoil every time we turn around.

[WRM20]

Originally Posted by daisee1203

So grateful my kids do not attend this school district. I laugh at anyone who thinks buying in the hot "hipster" neighborhoods is smart and then send their kids to the HISD public schools. Every time I see something on the news I thank the heavens we bought elsewhere. And yes, the drives are worth it to me if it means our school district isn't in turmoil every time we turn around.

Many of the HISD schools are decent. We are very happy with the education our son has received since 1st grade, and he's a HS sophomore now. The teachers manage to do their jobs despite the shenanigans of the administration and board.

[Vicman]

Originally Posted by hbcu

Nearly 3,000 students from Yates, Worthing, Sterling, Madison and Westbury are at Lamar, Bellaire or Westside.

There’s your problem right there. Lamar accepts 2,000 out of zone students cause in zone kids don’t go there

I also found that Lamar takes about twice the amount of transfers (meaning students zoned to other HISD high schools attending that school) that Bellaire and Westside take.

Lamar has 1,959 transfers (58% of the student body): https://www.houstonisd.org/cms/lib2/...Lamar%20HS.pdf
* 391 from Wisdom (former Lee) - Wisdom-zoned students may automatically enroll at Lamar w/o transportation
* 220 from Madison
* 207 from Westbury
* 170 from Worthing
* 137 from Yates
* The remainder: 834

Bellaire has 857 transfers (25% of the student body): https://www.houstonisd.org/cms/lib2/...laire%20HS.pdf
* 196 from Westbury
* 130 from Madison
* 118 from Lamar
* 117 from Sharpstown
* 83 from Wisdom
* The remainder: 213

Westside has 806 transfers (28% of the student body): https://www.houstonisd.org/cms/lib2/...tside%20HS.pdf
* 228 from Wisdom - Wisdom-zoned students may automatically enroll at Westside w/o transportation
* 135 from Sharpstown
* 113 from Westbury
* 70 from Madison
* 30 from Worthing
* The remainder: 230

As for the outflows from Madison, Sterling, Westbury, Worthing, and Yates (meaning students in the zones who attend other HISD high schools)

The Madison zone has 1,362 students (2,939-1,577) in other HISD high schools https://www.houstonisd.org/cms/lib2/...dison%20HS.pdf
* 220 to Lamar, 130 to Bellaire, 70 to Westside (which did not make the top # of schools draining students)

The Sterling zone has 1,810 (3,046-1,236) students in other HISD high schools https://www.houstonisd.org/cms/lib2/...rling%20HS.pdf
* 132 to Lamar

The Westbury zone has 1,130 (3,271-2,141) students in other HISD high schools https://www.houstonisd.org/cms/lib2/...tbury%20HS.pdf
* 207 to Lamar, 196 to Bellaire, 113 to Westside

The Worthing zone has 1,210 (2,034-824) students in other HISD high schools https://www.houstonisd.org/cms/lib2/...thing%20HS.pdf
* 170 to Lamar, 30 to Westside (which did not make the top # of schools draining students)

The Yates zone has 698 students (1,401-703) in other HISD high schools https://www.houstonisd.org/cms/lib2/...Yates%20HS.pdf
* 137 to Lamar, 37 to Bellaire

Adding the numbers together means that the three schools drained at least 1,442 students from those five schools (in many instances Bellaire and Westside didn't make the top number of schools draining students from a particular attendance zone) - I don't think the figure would reach 3,000.

[Vicman]

Originally Posted by hbcu

Treat education like real estate

Mix the good ones with the bad ones which in tune will force the some of the bad ones to shape up or ship out.

Originally Posted by WRM20

Nope, the bad students remain bad, and bring down the achievement of the good students through behavior, disruption, or just plain taking a lot more time from the teacher. You don't want the bad ones to ship out, since that hurts the dropout metrics.

Regarding those two posts, my guess is that "the good will outweigh the bad" may only work if there's a critical mass of "good" students. This seemed to happen to Wheatley under forced racial segregation, but it all went poof after the 1960s, and Wheatley declined once wealthy and talented African-Americans could go elsewhere. https://www.houstonpress.com/news/wh...eatley-6570922

Then the magnet programs drew the most ambitious students off to other schools. If some of Wheatley's greatest alumni from the Fifth Ward were in HISD today, chances are they would have no incentive to attend Wheatley. Ruth Simmons, who went on to become the first black president of Smith College, was a theater enthusiast, and would probably attend the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, as would such great jazz musicians as Arnett Cobb and Illinois Jacquet. Barbara Jordan would undoubtedly be drawn to the prelaw program at the High School for Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice. And Mickey Leland, who pretty much goofed off in high school? You wonder if he would have become the leader he became if he had not been exposed to the mix of students he passed through Wheatley with in the early '60s.

By the '90s, in many poor neighborhoods, the teachers are the only middle class influence these kids had. This teacher from Los Angeles has these comments: http://www.rjgeib.com/biography/inne...es/reply1.html

I used to teach right near that school near downtown Los Angeles where the parents protested bilingual education and I can tell you that bilingual education is an utter failure. However, I don't believe this has anything to do with curriculum or the policies of school districts or anything so exotic or abstract. It has to do with children whose parents hardly know how to read and write themselves and whom all too often have shallow academic aspirations for their children. It has to do with very poor Spanish-speaking children going to school with other very poor Spanish-speaking children with hardly a middle-class English speaking influence other than teachers for miles in any direction. You take the average immigrant child from Michoacan or Oaxaca and put them in such an environment, you all too often end up with a verbal SAT score of 298 - which was the average at Belmont High School near downtown LA. You take a child of educated parents from Mexico and put them in an middle class American school, and they will adapt and do well. In my experience, it is not the language (or money or curriculum) but the attitudes of everyone involved which is so important. In my experience, that is also why the Asian students do so much better (their parents will often kill them if they bring home a "B"!).

Look in many inner city schools today: Where will you find an "All-English clasroom?" If immersion is to work, it can only work when there is a critical mass of English-speaking kids.

Also: http://www.rjgeib.com/biography/inne...es/reply1.html

How we expect these Latino immigrant children to ever acquire an educated English when they live in neighborhoods so totally isolated from any English-speaking or middle class influences is beyond me!

The typical student in my class knew no one (besides their teachers) who had been to college. I remember meeting a young Mexican-American woman in a Westwood bar who was celebrating after having just graduated from UCLA. After talking with her about my job, etc. she told me, "I am the first woman in my very conservative Mexican immigrant family to graduate from college. I think you know what that means." Sure I knew. It meant she had done it by shear force of will power. I respected that very much and knew it had not been easy.

[travelguy_73]

Originally Posted by Vicman

The Westbury zone has 1,130 (3,271-2,141) students in other HISD high schools https://www.houstonisd.org/cms/lib2/...tbury%20HS.pdf
* 207 to Lamar, 196 to Bellaire, 113 to Westside

I live in the Bellaire zone, but only a few blocks from the Westbury zone. HISD could turn Westbury around within a single school year if the zoned Westbury kids didn't flee for Bellaire, Lamar, and Westside (which, BTW, is a heck of a drive each day!). Bellaire/Lamar/Westside would still be great schools and Westbury would become a real contendor. I don't know how you get from here to there, though. People don't want to socially experiment with their own kids.

[hbcu]

Originally Posted by travelguy_73

I live in the Bellaire zone, but only a few blocks from the Westbury zone. HISD could turn Westbury around within a single school year if the zoned Westbury kids didn't flee for Bellaire, Lamar, and Westside (which, BTW, is a heck of a drive each day!). Bellaire/Lamar/Westside would still be great schools and Westbury would become a real contendor. I don't know how you get from here to there, though. People don't want to socially experiment with their own kids.

that can be said for most of the high schools HISD. First time I saw Westside I thought that was an Alief school.

We do socially experiment with kids, it's called charter schools as you have charter schools eating away at the same neighborhoods that zoned kids are fleeing.

How can a school ever improve if you have open choice and a charter competing for the same academically sound kid in one zone?

[WRM20]

Originally Posted by hbcu

that can be said for most of the high schools HISD. First time I saw Westside I thought that was an Alief school.

We do socially experiment with kids, it's called charter schools as you have charter schools eating away at the same neighborhoods that zoned kids are fleeing.

How can a school ever improve if you have open choice and a charter competing for the same academically sound kid in one zone?

So, do you want to send your kid to a school that is awful, when they can go to a good magnet school?